Thursday, February 11, 2010

I'm Boycotting Bed Bath And Beyond!

I have to admit that I got a little hot last night when I heard that US Based retail chain Bed Bath and Beyond had decided to boycott any bitumen derived fuels that come from the Alberta Oil sands. While I can appreciate that all corporations are looking to show off their "Green-ish" policies, I think that they should stick to the office recycling parties before they look to alienate their shoppers.

If you look at the Canadian operations of Bed Bath and Beyond, the sales in Alberta are so minute to the overall financials of this company that frankly, its quite clear that they do not care about alienating Alberta or its citizens. While its true that a corporation has the right to set whatever environmental policy they choose, I do not have to support it.

I am only one person but I can speak with my wallet by choosing to boycott Bed Bath and Beyond. I would encourage all Albertan's to do the same as its probably time we support local chains anyways. This way, we avoid sending our dirty money to the USA.

If you are on twitter...why not send @BedBathNBeyond a message telling them how you feel.

@Anonymous You've been sticking your fingers in your ear already by not paying attention to the advancements since the cowboy days of ripping up the land (yes it did happen). You can't compare then to now. Open your eyes, and your mind. Read a little more than agendas. Read closely and you will see that progress is being made on new cleaner technologies that will help us transition into reliable clean forms of energy. BB&B have their fingers in their ears too, singing a selfish solo behind their plastic curtains (pretty sure those are made from petroleum). And if you think tarsands fuel is the evil monster that must be slain to save the world, have you seen what coal is doing?? http://bit.ly/6GBXQP or have you looked at world-wide projects like those in China, Pakistan or India? GHGs don't stop at borders. Same can't be said for BB&B trucks.

Yes coal is bad, and has been encouraged by the Alberta government as a power source for how long now?

The government is spending billions on dubious carbon capture technology, keeping huge amounts of wind power projects tied up in red tape, and meanwhile - it still takes 3 barrels of oil to create 5 in the oil sands.

The fact is, there will be a lot more boycotts of our products if we don't get serious. We can rail at the boycotters until we are blue in the face, but they will only become more plentiful until we take the 'fingers out of our ears' and actually do something about the problem.

What "local chains"? Thanks to the "free" trade continentalists that have run this country and province there's barely any such thing. Where are you going to shop instead? Walmart?

And do you realize that our "dirty money" from oil is mostly going to American oil companies anyway? Whatever lost revenue BBAB would have from your boycott will be made up in money sent south by the tar sands. Get a grip.

Albertans like Shane and a few other commenters blow my mind. They talk about progressive people who are looking for more investment in renewable energy sources like we are brainwashed. Carbon Capture technology is absolute BS, and is funded by the taxpayer. That money could have went back to actually providing Albertans a service (umm....HEALTH CARE MAYBE?). By bundling all of our eggs in one basket (the oil and gas basket), we have destined ourselves to be the next Detroit after Peak Oil, and the profits reaped will only be in the pockets of a handful of Albertans and mostly Texas Oil Exec's. If you Market-fundamentalists really think that trickle down economics has been the case for Albertans think again. Oh and thank you for for not supporting a raise in royalty rates, now countries like Norway (which have very little oil) have far more developed heritage funds than us! Boy are we ever reaping the benefits of overrampant Oil Sands development.In closing, i would like to say thank you for voting Conservative or Wild Rose at the provincial level, and i sincerely mean it when i say F*ck you.

It's good that America is such a great contributor to the green goals of the world. Let's see when I was down in Vegas, I couldn't find any place to toss my recyclable bottle... other than the trash! no recycling whatsoever down there, not even in my hotel room.

And I also fully support supporting local, Calgary business! After all I am one.

I think it is GREAT that they did this. If you dont you are obviously needing to pay more attention to your heart and a little less to your greed. Shame on you Shane, trying to get people to boycott because they did the RIGHT thing...... Do you work for dirty oil or something?